Venice Mostra, showcase of contemporary academisms

The golden lion of this 79th edition was awarded to “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”, a documentary by Laura Poitras with the agreed form on the opiate crisis in the United States.

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After having reviewed, eleven days for the 23 films which garnished the ranks of the competition, the jury of the 79 e

é> Mostra de Venice chaired by Julianne Moore, delivered, Saturday 10 September, the golden lion to director Laura Poitras for the documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, whose passage on the lagoon had left a strong impression. The American is thus the third consecutive woman to win the supreme award, after the Chinese Chloé Zhao with Nomadland, in 2020 and, the French Audrey Diwan with the Event, in 2021 – the latter appeared this year in the number of jurors.

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed retraces through the menu the life and creation course of photographer Nan Goldin, but also her current fight, within an association of victims, against the powerful Sackler family. At the head of a pharmaceutical empire judged responsible for the epidemic of opioids having ravaged the United States since the 1990s, it turned its image by the sponsorship of the arts and donations to the most prestigious museums in the world, which Some precisely exhibit the works of Goldin. This notably allowed the artist to put pressure on the pressure by threatening to withdraw them.

The film illuminates the corseted childhood of the photographer in the Massachusetts of the 1950s, her companionship with the New York Underground Queer and Flamboyant of the late 1970s, scene decimated by AIDS the following decade, creation From his famous series of slides The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, his free and sometimes toxic loves. If it turns out to be informative and interesting in terms of content, you can also find in the film a agreed form, compilation of documents and interviews chained with a horizon of clarity and efficiency.

The Trend of “content” works

The coronation of such a film, which represents the standard of the documentary, is symptomatic of a trend of Mostra for a few years – that a logic of red carpet is more and more to “content” works (Films on topic, performances of supported actors, pumping forms, theatrical register) – which makes competition a showcase of contemporary academics. Witness, in addition to the overall mediocre level of the edition, the door opened by the festival with the productions of platforms, often maximalist and emphatic, although it should be noted that none of them (White Noise, de Noah Baumbach, Bardo, Alejandro G. Iñarritu, Athena, Romain Gavras, and Blonde, of Andrew Dominik Côté Netflix; Argentina, 1985, from Santiago Miter on the Amazon side) has won award.

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/Media reports.